WASHINGTON — Rarely does political science bear resemblance to actual science. But Colorado’s 6th Congressional District this year offers what could be an ideal experiment for the Republican Party and its ambitions of winning the White House in 2016 and beyond.
Under the microscope is the campaign of U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, a third-term Republican from Aurora in the fight of his political life against Democrat Andrew Romanoff.
The race is close for several reasons, but of key interest to national Republicans is the racial breakdown of the boomerang-shaped district, which curves around Denver’s eastern border. Almost to the percentage point, the district mirrors how the nation is divided demographically — including its 20 percent Latino population.
With Latinos and other minorities on the rise politically, some Republicans say it is imperative for their party to figure out how to broaden its appeal beyond its traditional base. Otherwise, the Grand Old Party risks irrelevancy in a country projected to become 31 percent Latino by 2060.
“It is the demographics of the country. Whatever happens in Colorado is going to be an indicator of what is going to happen to the Republican Party in 2016,” said Patty Kupfer, managing director of America’s Voice, an immigration-reform advocacy group.
Official language
Testing that theory is Coffman, a classic Republican conservative who twice supported efforts to make English the nation’s official language but who now is devoted to meeting with a Spanish tutor every Sunday. This election cycle, he is the only GOP incumbent defending a House seat that could go either way, according to top political pundits such as Charlie Cook and Stuart Rothenberg.
In support, the Republican National Committee already has sent eight staff members to his district and opened two field offices — with a third on the way. The National Republican Congressional Committee also has reserved at least $3.3 million of TV ads, and the party has armed local volunteers with an arsenal of new voter databases and campaign tools.
Meanwhile, Coffman has tempered some of his past views. In his first two terms — but not the current one — Coffman co-sponsored a bill that would nix automatic citizenship for babies born in the country, as well as the English language measure. He also espouses a less-hardline approach to immigration.
The rapid metamorphosis has reignited one of the oldest debates in politics. When is taking a new stance pandering, and when is it an honest effort to represent constituents’ changing views?
“Colorado’s statewide and 6th District races are going to offer a pretty good benchmark for gauging the success of our efforts thus far and will also give us a good idea of what we need to do between 2014 and 2016,” said Michael Short, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
But demographics alone don’t explain the national interest in Coffman’s race. Party loyalty is another factor.
Registration in the district leans Republican, with about 137,000 voters, but it’s not a major edge. About 129,000 Democrats and 135,000 independents live there. Coffman carried the seat in 2012, but so did Democratic President Barack Obama — a rarity. Coffman is one of just 17 Republicans in the House who represent districts that voted for Obama, according to the Cook Political Report.
“Republicans need to start winning in areas like that,” said Owen Loftus, a staffer with the state GOP who worked on Coffman’s 2012 campaign.
Central to that goal is better outreach.
In addition to his work with Latino constituents, Coffman said he has made a point of trying to connect with his district’s Korean-American population, as well as enclaves of Ethiopian and Somali immigrants and their families.
“I try to spend as much time as I can with each one,” Coffman said.
But it’s his effort to learn Spanish and engage with the district’s Latino population — which is largely of Mexican heritage — that has caught the notice of national party officials.
“That’s something we’ve been talking about for months,” Short said of Coffman’s tutoring.
Bolstering these efforts is an initiative to upgrade the data-driven side of campaigning. It’s widely believed that Obama gained a huge edge in 2012 because of his campaign’s use of voter databases to drive turnout.
So, Republicans are trying to respond this year. The push was touted this year by RNC chairman Reince Priebus in an essay in which he specifically mentioned Aurora Ogg, the Asian Coalition regional director in Colorado.
“Aurora has the full support of the RNC and our resources,” he wrote. “Thanks to our multimillion-dollar investment in technology, and the private sector talent we’ve brought on board, she has at her fingertips a suite of tools that allow her to identify voters we need to target in her community.”
The battle for the 6th District is expected to be one of the most expensive in the country
. Yet all the money and technology won’t matter if Coffman can’t connect with swing voters in his district, a potential hurdle given his conservative record.
In his first two terms, Coffman’s seat was heavily Republican, so he had little incentive to moderate his positions.
“The fact that the vast majority of people in this district are opposed to the current agenda out of the White House and Congress does make my road pretty easy this time around,” Coffman said in 2010 ahead of a landslide win.
That changed when the state legislature redrew the congressional lines. Now Coffman’s criticisms of the administration don’t play as well.
The result, according to political operatives, is that Coffman has focused his fire on issues that play to his strengths — namely those related to veteran issues or U.S. policies in Iraq.
Wounded warriors
Coffman, a veteran who served in Iraq, has dogged the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs over its treatment of the nation’s wounded warriors. He also has spotlighted the troubled effort to build a new VA facility in Aurora.
The focus has Democrats and their allies calling foul.
Brandon Lorenz, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement that Coffman “can’t win by talking about his record.”
Added Romanoff in a statement: “We deserve a representative who will work to pass comprehensive immigration reform, ensure equal pay for equal work, and protect a woman’s right to choose.”
It’s the issue of immigration, though, that stalks Coffman more than any other — a point hammered home this week. On Tuesday, the Service Employees International Union began a two-week run of Spanish-language ads against Coffman on immigration.
The attacks follow an attempt by Coffman last year to soften his position — at least in public statements. In an essay last summer, he backed a pathway to citizenship for young people living in the U.S. illegally.
“I think Mike could see immigration was changing (and that) Republicans needed to take a new approach to immigration,” said former Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams.
“Real turning point”
At a 2013 town hall meeting that activists still cite as seminal, Coffman expressed similar support for helping young immigrants become citizens.
“He was speaking very, very painful Spanish to the crowd,” said Kupfer of America’s Voice. “And that was a real turning point. They were really moved that he was making an effort.”
But Kupfer said Coffman since has disappeared and not done enough to advance immigration reform.
“I think he’s still counting on the fact that at one point he said this one thing,” she said.
For their part, Coffman and his staff said he is working to find a middle ground on immigration, although that doesn’t include supporting the doomed bill that passed the Senate last year. Rather, he favors a “step-by-step process” of passing immigration reform in separate pieces. That approach, however, is also a non-starter on Capitol Hill.
With both legislative efforts at a dead end, all that is left now for Coffman and his critics are the parsing of his words — and their translations on the campaign trail.
Mark K. Matthews: 202-662-8907, mmatthews@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/mkmatthews
A microcosm of america
The racial breakdown of Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, which pits Republican incumbent Mike Coffman and Democratic challenger Andrew Romanoff, parallels national figures:
6th District
White (non-Latino): 62.5 percent
Latino (any race): 20.1 percent
Black: 9.5 percent
Asian: 5.6 percent
United States
White (non-Latino): 62.6 percent
Latino (any race): 17.1 percent
Black: 13.2 percent
Asian: 5.3 percent
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
